Fashion Majors

The Fashion Department offers three majors to provide students with specialized skills:

Fashion Communication and PromotionAt Lasell, fashion degrees don’t have to be just about design and merchandising – it can also be about communicating. The fashion industry involves developing, promoting and selling a product that has specific aesthetic and functional properties, triggers psychological reactions related to desire and need and is adopted by a group of people for a limited amount of time.

Students in the Fashion Communication and Promotion major will learn the basics and importance of fashion journalism and communication; fashion courses cover a variety of areas, including mass media, public relations, advertising, fashion marketing, and more.

The fashion industry generated over $16 billion globally in 2009, and it continues to be a driving economic force. Industry trends reflect a shift to cultivating Fashion Communication and Promotion as a distinct, interdisciplinary component of the global culture of today. Fashion has infiltrated major traditional communication outlets including television shows such as Project Runway and the Rachel Zoe Project, fashion movies from Unzipped to The Devil Wears Prada, and celebrity magazines that tout a "style issue" and style sections in every major Sunday newspaper. Lasell’s fashion courses give students a look into how effectively use these media outlets in the fashion industry and leave with a fashion degree that prepares them for professional media environments.

Lasell’s fashion design programs offer students the expertise necessary to navigate the fast-paced and exciting fashion industry. The fashion courses at Lasell focus on the specialized areas of retail merchandising, clothing design, and visual and promotional design techniques. Other supporting industries are examined through fashion classes in business, textiles, garment design, pattern marking, grading, photography, buying, operations and fashion history. Students use the latest computer-aided design (CAD/CAM) equipment in their fashion courses to make production markers and engineer patterns for optimal material use. Lasell’s fashion degrees include a solid foundation in both liberal arts and business courses.

Through Lasell's Connected Learning philosophy, students working toward their fashion degrees have ongoing opportunities to apply theoretical concepts of academic studies by working in the field with recognized leaders in the fashion industry. The upper-level professional fashion classes are oriented toward decision-making tasks that students will face when making the transition from college to middle and upper management positions. Students learn how to plan strategically, organize for profitability (using design cost sheets and computer costing technology pertinent to each degree), control design operations, and promote creativity.

News Highlight

State Board of Higher Education Approves New Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice Wednesday, December 17, 2014The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education has approved a new Master’s degree in Criminal Justice at Lasell that will offer students multiple concentrations in Emergency Management, Homeland Security, Violence Prevention and Advocacy as well as a flexible Criminal Justice option. The online program launches in Fall 2015.